GtkRadiant Editor Manual

The authors would like to thank the many supporters of Quake Engine
editing who made this work possible. Several sections in the manual
are based on material written by dedicated fans. Others were
"corrected" by fans who found undiscovered bugs in both the editor
and game code. Where possible, we have noted the contributors in
the sections they helped produce.

Paul Jaquays
Robert A. Duffy

GtkRadiant note: This version of the manual has been adapted for GtkRadiant from the original Q3Radiant manual.

Part of the fun of games like Quake III Arena is the ability to add
to your own ideas to a favorite game and then have others play and
enjoy them. While the technical skills needed to create a 3D
graphic engine is beyond many game fans, the skills and equipment
necessary to make modifications to the game are not. It has become
the custom of many game developers to share their development tools
with the public. This allows fans make their own game content. The
GtkRadiant editor is based on the software used by the designers at
id to create the arenas in Quake III Arena. In fact, it's an
improvement on that editor, since it contains features that have
been added since the game was completed. If you are familiar with
GtkRadiant's major ancestor, the QERadiant editor for
Quake 2, then a good share of what's in this manual will be
old hat to you. Whether you are a veteran mapmaker or new to the
art of making game arenas, we think you will find some
indispensible information in this manual.

Now comes the caveat.

This manual will tell you how to use the tools, but not
necessarily, how to make what you have in mind. Many fine on-line
tutorial and resource sites will be listed at the end of the
document.

The designers at id used Q3Radiant on some heavy-duty computing
equipment to make their game maps. Despite the fact that Quake III
Arena runs under several different operating systems, not every
computer that can run Quake III Arena will be able to run the
GtkRadiant editor.
GtkRadiant runs on MS Windows 95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP, MacOSX and Linux. The editor
requires an Open GL 1.1 compliant 3D graphics acceleration card (it is
expected that all cards capable of running Quake III Arena will be
able to handle editor functions … although some may handle
it better). A 3-button mouse gives the best performance.

The minimum system requirements generally require that preferences
such as texture quality and screen resolution be set to absolute
minimums. The editor will run on the systems described, but speed
of operation and visual quality will probably be less than
satisfactory. It should also be noted that you would be limited to
working on relatively small maps with limited texture and model
usage.

The more powerful the machine, the better and usually faster the
development experience. This will become especially true when you
get to the point of compiling your maps (turning them from editor
code into game code). It should come as no surprise that, more
powerful machines will crunch the numbers faster when compiling a
map.

Processor:

P2450 (or better)

RAM:

128 meg**

Video Card:

Open GL accelerated video card

Screen Resolution:

1280 x 1024

Pointing Device:

Two-button mouse*

* This will work, but not well. A three-button mouse, even on a
minimal system is highly preferred.
** id designers often found it convenient to work with several maps
open at once. The recommended 128 Meg of RAM may not be enough to
accommodate this.

The key to a satisfactory editing experience is whether your video
card supports the demands of the editor. The original id editor was
designed for a workstation card called the Realizm, which ran on
Intergraph workstations in a WinNT environment. Robert Duffy
expanded this to include the Win9x operating systems and a number
of other video cards. But not all video cards support the editor
equally well.

The G200 and G400 require updated drivers from Matrox

The 3dfx Voodoo 3000 chipset requires a driver upgrade in order
for the map grids to show.

If the map grids don't appear when using some ATI chip
sets, try turning the settings on you desktop up to 32 bit (true
color).

Nvidia TNT and GeFORCE have slowdown issues when the user
selects curve patches. While this is a driver issue, it can be
addressed by checking the "Solid selection boxes"
feature under preferences.